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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58041	Mercurius Rusticus, or, The countries complaint of the barbarous outrages committed by the sectaries of this late flourishing kingdom together with a brief chronology of the battels, sieges, conflicts, and other most remarkable passages, from the beginning of this unnatural war, to the 25th of March, 1646.	Ryves, Bruno, 1596-1677.; Barwick, John, 1612-1664. Querela Cantabrigiensis.; Wharton, George, Sir, 1617-1681. Mercurius Belgicus.	1685 (1685)	Wing R2449; ESTC R35156	215,463	414

him we may justly receive at his hands heavier Judgments than these yet our Innocence will plead Not Guilty to the face of any Man who shall object against us any Civil Misdemeanors whereby we can more justly be deprived of our Fellowships than any free Subject in England of his fee Simple if they please to say he is guilty of Misdemeanors And as it hath pleased our gracious Master whose Ministers we are to make us examples though but of suffering to the rest of our Brethren So we hope he will continue unto us his grace of humilation under his mighty hand as an earnest of his exalting us in due time And in the interim that he will lay no more upon us than he shall be pleased to strengthen our infirmities to bear And that he will still preserve unto us a good conscience that whereas our persecutors speak evil of us as of evil doers they may be ashamed that falsly accuse our good conversation in Christ. FINIS Mercurius Belgicus OR A briefe Chronology of the Battels Sieges Conflicts and other most remakable passages from the beginning of this Rebellion to the 25 th of March 1646. Together with A Catalogue of the Persons of Quality slain on both sides CICERO Incerti sunt exitus pugnarum Marsque esi communis qui saepe spoliantem jam exultantem evertit perculit ab abjecto Printed in the Year 1685. The Preface Readers YOU have here a canded and impartial Epitomy of an unnatural War Subjects banding against their lawful Prince Brother against Brother and Father against Son Read but the said ensuing Story and therein consider the number and quality of Persons slain the destruction of Houses and Families the desolation of Cities and Towns the increase of Widows and Orphans the Tyranny and inhumanity of our new Legislators over their own Fellow-Subjects and you will easily conclude of these as Cicero did of Sylla's time Nemo illo invito nec bona nec patriam nec vitam retinere potueirt In earnest it may well be wondred whence these men have their minds God nor man nor Nature ever made them thus To be short the Reader may here see the flux and reflux of Fortune de la Guerre now this party flourisheth and that goes down anon that flourisheth and this goes down as if the guilt of our sins were drawing a heavy Judgment from Heaven upon this Land and these Rebels were ordained for the instruments of it But let us hope for better And particularly that God in the richness of his mercy will look down upon these macerated Kingdoms and periodize these distractions That Religion may again flourish in its purity maugre the Plots and impieties of all Seditiaries and Schismaticks That His Sacred Majesty may be re-established in His just Rights and Prerogatives that Parliaments may move in their own and known Centre the Ancient Laws of the Land re-inforced and freed from fellow-subjects Tyranny and Arbitration and the Subject re-estated in his Ancient Liberties freed from Murder Rapine and Plunder which that we may quickly see let it be the Subject of ever good Christian Prayer Memorable OCCURRENCES since the beginning of this REBELLION Anno Dom. 1641. IN December 1641. The House of Commons published a Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom therein setting forth all the errors of his Majesties Government a meer design to alienate the affection of his Subjects from him The tenth of January following his Majesty with the Queen Prince and Duke of Yorke left White-hall and went to Hampton Court to avoid the danger of those frequent tumults then hazarding the safety of his Royal Person February the 23 d. the Queens Majesty took shipping at Dover having been driven before from White-hall by the frequent tumults of the Rebels And soon after His Majesty went to New-market and from thence to Yorke where after the Rebels had Guards for three Months before the Gentry of the Country raised a Guard for his Majesties Person Anno Dom. 1642. MAY the 20 th it was voted by both Houses That the King intended to levie War against the Parliament which they did on purpose to excuse themselves for raising a Rebellion against His Majesty as appeared within few days after July the second the Kings ship called the Providence Landed in the Creek of Kenningham near Hull till which time His Majesty had not a Barrel of Powder nor any Arms or Ammunition whatsoever July the 12 th the pretended two Houses Voted that the Earl of Essex should be General of their Army and that they would live and die with him August the first the Earl of Essex caused all the men then raised being in number about 10000 to be committed to Officers and divided into Regiments which men had been raising ever since the 12 th of July 1642. at which time he was made General of the Rebels August the sixth the Earl of Bedford having fruitlessely besieged the Lord Marquess of Hertford in Sherburn Castle for four days before retreated to Yevell the Noble Marquess sallied after him and with a small number fell on that great body of the Rebels Kill'd above 140 whereof 9 Commanders took divers Prisoners and routed the rest so as he marched away and after divided his small Forces going himself into Wales and Sir Ralph now Lord Hopton into Cornwall of both which there followed so good an effect August the 22 d. His Majesty set up his Standard Royal at Nottingham for raising of Forces to suppress the Rebels then marching against him September the 23 d. Prince RUPERT with about 11 Troops of Horse gave a great overthrow to the Rebels in Wikefield near Worcester where Colonel Sands that commanded in chief received his mortal wound Major Douglas a Scot and divers other Captains and Officers slain and drowned Captain Wingate a Member of the House of Commons with four Coronets taken and two more torn in pieces This body of the Rebels was observed to be the flower of their Cavalry October the 23 d. was that signal great battel fought between Keynton and Edg-hill by his Majesties Army and that of the Rebels led by the Earl of Essex wherein the Rebels lost above 70 Colours of Coronets and Ensigns and His Majesty but only 16 Ensigns and not one Coronet The exact number that were slain on both sides in this Battel is not known But it is certain that the Rebels lost above three for one Men of eminence of his Majesties Forces who were slain in the Battel were the two Noble and valiant Lords Robert Earl of Lindsey Lord High Chamberlain of England and George Lord D. Aubigney Brother to the Duke of Richmond and Lenox Sir Edmund Verney Knight Marshal to His Majesty with some other worthy Centlemen and Soldiers but besides these three named there was not one Noble Man or Knight kill'd which was an extraordinary mercy of Almighty God considering what a glorious sight of Princes Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Barons Knights and

continue the Spoil until the next Day-light failed them until Wednesday night In this time they carry away the Wealth of the Town to Northampton and other places sparing none but those whose Tongues are framed to Shiboleth men of their own Faction whether they were active against them or stood Neuters By which Essay those Luke-warm men who stand Pendulous equally poised between Rebellion and Loyalty and know not which side to lean unto may guess what measure they are like to receive from the Rebels hands if ever they come to have them in their power In the Town two men especially suffer under these Free-booters Mr. Gray and Mr. Fisher from the first being Clerk of the Peace they take away the Commissions of Peace the Sessions Rolls together with his own Evidences and Leases all his Houshold-stuff even to his very Bed-cords leaving but one Sheet for his Wife and five Children His Wheat and other Corn they give to their Horses what they did not eat they threw into the Streets and trampled it in the dirt From the other they took Goods and other things amounting to a very great Sum And to compleat their wickedness to their Oppression they add Scorn for having taken away all that they could in derision they affix Protections in writing under Colonel Norwich his hand at his and some others doors forbidding any man to Plunder Generally what they could not carry away they spoil so that the Loss sustained by the Town is valued at Six thousand pounds They took Mr. Neile Prisoner and some Forty more amongst them they took the Vicar Master Jones a grave and learned man but lame and very sickly and having Plundered him of all he had they mount him on a poor Jade with a Halter instead of a Bridle the rest they tie two and two together and drive them before them to Northampton Mr. Gray as I told you was the day before led Prisoner to Welby from thence to Northampton where his Prison cannot afford him protection from the fury and rage of the Soldiers to make way to his death they threaten to pull down the House where he was confined And the Commissioners finding that he could not remain there with any safety were constrained to send him away Prisoner to London Being come thither Articles are framed and exhibited against him which being examined at a Committee and no proof at all made he was Voted to be discharged his Imprisonment yet to delude Justice and the Petition of Right the Chair-man could never find a time to make his Report to the House so that he remained a Prisoner for a long time On the 28. of January 1642. the Castle of Sudely upon Composition was delivered up to the Rebels there were Articles agreed on and sworn to but as he spake truly Children were deceived with Apples and Men with Oaths the Rebels as they swear to Articles for their advantage so they break them as easily for their advantage and make Perjury an easie uninterrupted passage to Theft and Robbery for these Rebels brake as many Articles as they swore unto they plunder not only the Castle the Seat and House of the Lord Chandois and Winchcombe a neighbouring Village to the utter undoing the poor Inhabitants but in defence of the Protestant Religion and vindication of the Honor of God they profane his House There is in the Castle a goodly fair Church here they dig up the Graves and disturb the ashes of the dead they break down the ancient Monuments of the Chandoses and instead thereof leave a prodigious Monument of their Sacrilegious profaneness for each part of the Church they find a peculiar way to profane it the lower part of it they make their Stable the Chancel their Slaughter-house Unto the Pulpit which of all other places in probability might have escaped their Impiety they fasten pegs to hang the Carcasses of the slaughtered Sheep the Communion-Table according to their own Language they make their Dresser or Chopping-board to cut out their meat into the Vault wherein lay the Bodies of the Chandoses an ancient and honorable Family they cast the guts and garbage mingling the loathsom Intrals of Beasts with those Bones and Ashes which did there rest in hope of a joyful Resurrection The Nave or Body of the Church was all covered with the dung and blood of Beasts and which was if it be possible a degree beyond these Profanations in contempt of God and his holy Temple they defile each part and corner both of Church and Chancel with their own Excrements and going away left nothing behind them in the Church besides Walls and Seats but a stinking Memory that part of the Parliament Army raised for the defence of Religion had been there Let that railing Rabshekah or jeering Sanballet I mean the Author of the ridiculous Pamphlet intituled One Argument more against the Cavaliers read this Story and then tell me which are most guilty of prophanation of Churches the Cavaliers or the Round-heads which were most profaned either St. Mary Maudlins in Oxford or the Church at Sudly Castle and yet this Dog sticks not with Shimei to bark at his Sovereign and blaspheme his Piety as if the Rebels brought from Cyrencester had been Quartered in this Church by his approbation who to expiate that guilt gave an hundred an fifty pounds to adorn and beautifie that Church The truth is there was a fault in the Commanders for lodging them in Churches who if they had had their due had been hanged for Rebellion their carcasses exposed to the Fowls of the air and the Beasts of the field that the Ravens of the valleys might have had their due portion and never suffered them to come so near the Church as to have the priviledge of Christian Burial in the Church-yard So even so let all the Kings enemies perish O Lord and let all the people say Amen In Saint Maries Church in Warwick and the Chappel commonly called the Earls Chappel adjoyning to the Choire of that Church are divers fair Monuments of the Beauchamps anciently Earls of that place which Family long flourishing there had been great Benefactors and Beautifiers of that Church whereof Thomas Beauchamp Earl of Warwick and Earl Marshal of England and one of the Founders of the most noble Order of the Garter in the Reign of King Edward the Third built the Choire now standing in the midst whereof is his Monument and adorned the Windows with the Pictures of Himself his Wife and Children which were many upon the Surcoats of the Men were their Arms skilfully depicted the Women having the like and Mantles over which were the Arms of their Matches their Husbands being the prime Nobility of those times The like Portraitures in Glass but much more rich and costly were in that stately Chappel before-mentioned In this stood the Monument of Earl Richard being Brass gilt and in the Opinion of judicious observant Travellers esteemed the rarest Piece erected for any Subject

in the Christian World but such is the barbarousness of the pretenders to Reformation that upon Wednesday the 14. of this instant June the Souldiers by the appointment and encouragement of one whom in these degenerous Times wherein the dregs of the People are made Commanders for the advancement of Rebellion men call Colonel Purefey a man of a mean desperate Fortune but by the means of the late Lord Brooke chosen Burgess of Parliament for Warwick and who had the greatest Influence in seducing that unhappy Lord to this desperate Rebellion in which he miserably perished did beat down and deface those Monuments of Antiquity and not content with this by the same Command they break down the Cross in the Market-place not leaving one stone upon another Purefey all the while standing by animating and encouraging them until they had finished their so barbarous Work In which the World may observe that these men are the sworn Enemies not only of pretended Superstition but of the Ensigns of Nobility and Gentry that if their Diana I mean their Parity may take effect Posterity may forget and not read the distinction of Noble from ignoble in these venerable Monuments of ancient Nobility there being in these Windows something indeed to instruct a Herauld nothing to offend the weakest Christian. Mercurius Rusticus c. VII Doctor Cox barbarously used by the Earl of Stamford at Exeter contrary to the Law of Arms. The unheard-of Cruelties committed by the Lord Grey of Groby and his Souldiers on the person house goods and servants of Master Nowell in Rutlandshire Dr. Bargrave ill intreated by Col. Sands in Kent c. AFter the great and happy Defeat given by the Victorious Sir Ralph Hopton to the Devonshire Forces at Starton it pleased the Commanders of His Majesties Forces to entertain thoughts of Clemency towards the remainder of the Rebels To testifie to the World therefore that there was nothing more in their desires than a Thrift of Christian Blood and withal to heap coles of fire upon their heads to conquer them by kindness whom they had often conquered by the sword by their Letters they signifie their readiness to close up those wide rents between them by a Treaty And that a Message of Peace might be well suited with a Messenger they sent the Letters by Dr. Cox Doctor of Divinity who attended by a Trumpeter came to Exeter that Sunday in the After-noon The Trumpeter as the manner is gave the Town warning as soon as he came within sight of the Guard and presently an Officer came to receive him who blind-folding him with a Handkerchief pinn'd over his Eyes conducted him through the City unto the Earl of Stamfords House having admittance there the Doctor takes off his Handkerchief but accidentally did not dispose of the pin that fastned it but still kept it in his Hand the Earl had no sooner set his eyes upon the Doctor but presently he reviles him and calls him all the reproachful Names he could imagine and swore that he would hang him instantly but first to extort a confession from him he offers a Knife or Dagger to his Breast demanding an answer to some Interrogatories the Doctor not affrighted with such rough usage replies very discreetly That he had received commands to deliver certain Letters from the Commanders of the Cornish to those of the Devonshire Army but that he had no Commission to satisfie any different and by-demands this denial to answer together with after dinner inflamed the Earl and put him into a new fit of Railing and for variety sake he did intermix the opprobrious names with many menaces and offers of stabbing him In the end seeing that this harsh welcome could effect nothing nor awe the Doctor to make any discovery he demands the Letters the Doctor that he might clear his hands and so dive into his Pockets suddenly put the Pin which he held in his hands between his lips hereupon one Baxter a Serjeant-Major of the City observing the motion of his hand but not perceiving what it conveyed to his mouth cryed out What doth the rogue eat there he swallows Papers of Intelligence With this the Earl forgetting the Gravity and serious Deportment of a Peer of the Kingdom of England began in an antick manner to leap and skip and frisk crying out Treason Treason he comes to betray the City Courage my brave blades and so turning to the Doctor he set his Dagger again to his Breast and demanded what it was that he had put into his mouth The Doctor mildly and softly putting his hands to his lips took the Pin thence and shewing it to his Lordship said It is a Pin my Lord. The Serjeant-Major thinking to intercept the supposed Intelligence going down the Doctors throat instantly flies to him took him by the throat and griped him so hard that he had almost strangled him The Earl himself most unworthily crying out Cut the Villains throat cut it nor did he command another what he would not do himself for with his own hands he offered his Knife thrice at the Doctors throat to cut it but the Doctor still put it by God who is a present help in trouble restrained the Earl and delivered the Doctor out of his hands Nor was it his hap to suffer from Honorable hands only the standers by are not idle but follow so leading an example as if he had been sent for from Cornwall to Exeter on no other errand than to be made the City scorn and the subject whereon their wanton insolency should vent it self every one in the Room had a fling at him some with their fists beat him about the head others scratch his face one with his fingers boars his ears to his extream torment another with his fingers rakes in his mouth hoping there to find some Papers of Intelligence one tears his hair another forces his hand down his throat and the thing for which they make this strict search is Intelligence some scrole of Intelligence Sure there is much want of Intelligence in their own heads that made such strict inquisition for it in another mans Well this pursuit of Intelligence so long they continue and so eagerly that the Doctor fainting under so barbarous usage was ready to give up the Ghost and for fear he should dye under their hands they leave him a sad emblem of that entertainment which the Messengers of Peace find from the men of this Generation Let that rebellious City remember and tremble at that condolement of our Saviour over the like sin O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee I am unwilling to go on and read her destiny and therefore shall return to the story Having in this unchristian manner insulted long enough upon the Doctor they divert their rage and spend the rest of their Fury on the Trumpeter and having either before in part breathed out their madness or not thinking the poor Trumpeter so

Law Some of the Red-coats replyed Doth he so We will teach him another Lesson and make him leave those Popish Superstitions or he shall rue it Soon after they repair to the Church at Acton break open the Doors by force in the Chancel they find this Subscription on the Wall This Chancel was repaired and beautified such a year by Daniel Featly D.D. Rector which they utterly defaced Then laying hands on the Rails they dealt with them as Ducks do with a Frog tear them limbless and afterwards burnt them in the Street saying That if they had the Parson there they would burn him with his Popish Trinkets Soon after Colonel Urrey took up his Quarters at the Parsonage-house some of whose Soldiers whether willingly or by carelesness being in Drink is not certified lying in the Doctors Barn set it on Fire which burned the whole Barn full of Corn and two Stables down to the ground the loss being estimated by the Inhabitants at Two hundred and eleven pounds But to leave Acton and come to Lambeth where the Secretaries wrecked their spleen not upon Pales or Rails or the Fruits of the Earth as at Acton but upon the Bodies of Christs Servants on his own Day and in his own House and Court For February 19. 1642. even in the midst of Divine Service at the reading of the Te Deum laudamus four or five Soldiers rushed into the Church with Pistols and drawn Swords affrighted the whole Congregation out wounded one of the Inhabitants whereof he soon after died shot another dead as he hung by the hands on the Church-yard wall looking over to the Palace Court who might truly have said in the words of the Poet though in another sense Ut vidi ut perii It was gathered by many Circumstances especially by Depositions taken before the Coroner and by some Speeches that fell from their own mouths that their principal aim at that time was to have murdered the Doctor which 't is probable they had effected had not some honest Inhabitants premonished the Doctor who was at the same time on his way towards the Church intending to have Preached About the same time many of these Murderers were heard expressing their rancour against the Doctor thus Some said they would chop the Rogue as small as Herbs to the Pot for suffering Pottage for by that name they usually stile the Book of Common Prayer to be read in his Church Others said They would squeeze the Pope out of his Belly with such like scurrilous and malicious Language The Sunday sennight after this Outrage being the fifth of March the Doctor perceiving some Separatists at Sermon at Lambeth took occasion to speak as followeth IF ever Schismaticks and foul mouth'd Separatists were set forth in their native colours the Schismaticks of this age are Psal. 50.16 17 18 19 20. What hast thou to do to declare my Statutes or that thou should'st take my Covenant in thy mouth Seeing thou hatest instruction whatsoever thou pratest of Reformation and castest my words behind thee namely Prov. 14.21 Eccles. 10.20 Rom. 12.1 2 3 4. Heb. 13.8 9 17. 1 Pet. 2.13 When thou sawest a thief then thou consentedst with him and hast been partaker with Adulterers Thou givest thy mouth to lying and thy Tongue frameth deceit Thou sittest and speakest against thy Brother and slanderest thine own Mothers son For is not this their canting Language The Prelates of England are all Antichristian The Ministers Baals Priests The publick Service Idolatrous The Ceremonies Superstitious and the Sacraments corrupted with mans Inventions I take them at their word If this be true then is the Church of England no true Church of Christ then they which have received all the Religion they have from her are no better then Miscreants Pagans and Infidels in apparent peril of drowning in everlasting perdition because out of the Ark without God in this World because without his Church For as the Blessed Martyr Saint Cyprian soundly argueth against their Fore-fathers the Catharists Deum non potest habere Patrem qui Ecclesiam not habet Matrem And Church they have none for their Mother for they disclaim the true Protestant Church of England and the Popish disclaims them so they are mere A per se A's Independents like the horti pensiles in Lactantius and Mausolus his Sepulchre in Martial hanging and hovering in the Air. The Scripture sets forth the true visible Church of Christ upon Earth under the Emblem of a great Field a great Floor a great House a great Sheet a great Draw-net a great and large Foundation c. The Church shadowed out under these Similitudes cannot be their Congregation or rather Conventicles For as they brag and commend themselves wanting good Neighbors In their Field there are no Tares in their Floor there is no Chaff in their House no Vessels of Dishonor in their Sheet no Unclean Beasts in their Net no trash on their Foundation nothing built but Gold Silver and precious Stones They have not sate with vain Persons nor kept company with Dissemblers they have hated the assembly of Malignants and have not accompanied with the Ungodly they have not nor will not Christen in the same Font nor sit at the Holy Table for to kneel at the Sacrament is Idolatry nor drink Spiritually the Blood of our Redeemer in the same Chalice with the wicked Get ye packing then out of our Churches with your bags and baggages hoyse up Sail for New England or the Isle of Providence or rather Sir Thomas More 's Eutopia where Pluto's Commoner and Osorius his Nobleman and Castillio his Courtier and Vigetius his Soldier and Tully his Orator and Aristocles Felix and the Jews Bencohab and the Manichees Paraclet and the Gnosticks Illuminate ones and the Montanists Spiritual ones and the Pelagians perfect ones and the Catharists pure ones and their precise and holy ones are all met at Prince Arthurs round Table where every Guest like the Table is totus teres atque rotundus There are three Heads of Catechism and Grounds of Christianity The Apostles Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments these may be more truly than Gorran his Postills termed aurea fundamenta which they go about to overthrow and cast down and when they have done it no place remaineth for them to build their Synagogues or Maria Rotunda's but the Sand in the Saw-pit where their Apostle Browne first taught most profoundly The Lords Prayer they have excluded out of their Liturgy the Apostles Creed out of their Confession and the Ten Commandments by the Antinomians their Disciples out of their rule of life They are too good to say the Lords Prayer better taught than to rehearse the Apostles Creed better liv'd than to hear the Decalogue read at their Service for God can see no Sin in them nor Man Honesty Tell me ye Bastard brood of Martius is it not sufficient for the conviction of your cauterized Consciences that ye wreck your spleen upon the

was to know and foresee in him what end attends those who forgetting all Religion and Loyalty shall lift up their hands against their God in Sacrilege and against their Sovereign in Rebellion Mercurius Rusticus c. II. The Cathedral Church of Rochester violated the Sacrilege and prophaneness of the Rebels under Command of Sir William Waller and Sir Arthur Haslerig acted on the Cathedral Church of Chichester c. AS when the Spirit brought the Prophet Ezekiel into the holy Temple he led him from place to place and each place entertained him with greater Abominations than the former so that the farewel to the last Vision and the invitation to the next is Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater Abominations than these so having brought you in the Cathedrals of this Kingdom Temples in despite of Atheists Rebels and Anabaptists of God too and having shewed you the Abomination of desolation in one of them viz. in Canterbury the first instance of their accursed rage and having viewed that I must now lead you on as the Spirit did the Prophet from place to place and the incitement may be the same for though you have seen great prophanations in the former relation yet you shall see greater Abominations than these The next instance of the Rebels profaneness which I shall offer unto you is in the Cathedral of Rochester recompensed for the smalness of ' its revenue with the honour of ' its antiquity as boasting of Ethelbert King of Kent a common Founder to this Church with those of Canterbury and London The unhappy loss of Earnulphus History the thirty second Bishop of this See deprives us of that light which discovered the various condition of this Church how long in the beginning it struggled with ' its own poverty and in after ages with the injuries of time and War remaining some Years in a kind of widowhood without the government and superintendency of a Bishop till at last Gundulfus the thirtieth Bishop of this See reedified this Church from the ground and brought it into that magnificence in which we now see it to which pious work he brought so good so vigorous affections that as Maelmesbury records of him Praevenerat vivacitas Gundulfi omnium successorum diligentiam Gundulphus alacrity in that work did so prevent the piety of his successors that he hardly left them any place in this kind wherein to exercise their bounty Little did the overflowing zeal of our Ancestours to the house of God like that of the old Israelites pouring out their wealth and precious things to adorn the Tabernacle in so great measure that Moses was fain to publish a Proclamation to restrain their liberality for the stuff they had was sufficient for the work to make it and too much Exod. 36.6 7. little I say did they thnik when they did this that what they thus bountifully gave unto God should ever while this Kingdom remained Christian become a prey to those which as Tertullian speaks Gentes agunt Christi nomine have not so much as a form but the bare usurped name of Christianity which they fully and pollute with those worse than heathenish crimes of Sacrilege and Prophaneness had the Sacrilege lately commited at Canterbury been applauded by the People to gain whom no arts though never so repugnant either to Religion or common honesty were left unattempted certainly this Church which next stood in their way and immediately after Canterbury tasted of their fury had been utterly demolished and offered up a sacrifice to Popularity But Plundering being then but a stranger in England newly arrived here from desolate Germany especially Plundering of Churches which heretofore were held inviolable Sanctuaries for offenders but much more for their own innocent ornaments this made a general outcry every man detested so foul impiety nay their own party some of them not yet so deeply leavened with their Anabaptistical Doctrines nor given up to so reprobate a sense to believe monstrous lyes for truth did not onely not approve but sparingly condemn the Fact and the general vote of the People awakened by Doctor Paske his Letter declared it barbarous and wicked nay the dislike of such proceedings grew to so great a height that some wise men were deceived into an opinion that the Houses would punish the offenders for the present and publish an Order to restrain the like outrages for the future and indeed though some good men Members of both Houses did earnestly desire it yet by experience they quickly found how unequal they were to effect any thing in which they had not the concurrence of the heads of the Faction which ruled in both Houses but much less when they rowed against the stream and had them for their adversaries The Rebels therefore coming to Rochester brought the same affections along with them which they express'd at Canterbury but in wisdom thought it not safe to give them the same scope here as there for the multitude though mad enough yet were not so mad nor stood yet so prepar'd to approve such heathenish practices by this means the Monuments of the Dead which elsewhere they brake up and violated stood untouched Escutcheons and Arms of the Nobility and Gentry upbraiding eye-fores to broken mean Citizens and vulgar Rebels remained undefaced the Seats and Stalls of the Quire escaped breaking down onely those things which were wont to stuff up Parliament Petitions and were branded by the Leaders of the Faction for Popery and Innovation in these they took liberty to let loose their wild zeal they brake down the rail about the Lords Table or Altar call it which you please and not only so but most basely reviled a now Reverend Prelate who being lately Dean of that Church had for the more uniform and reverend receiving of the blessed Sacrament set it up with the odious name of Rogue often repeated they seized upon the Velvet Covering of the holy Table and in contempt of those holy Mysteries which were Celebrated on the Table removed the Table it self into a lower place of the Church in this perfect Disciples of that profane Author of the Book called Altare Damascenum who in the 718. p. devoutly resolves thus De loco ubi consistat cur solliciti cum quovis loco vel Angulo extra Tempus Administrationis collocari possit Concerning the place where the Lords Table shall stand what need we to be sollicitous when out of the time of administration of the Sacrament it may be set aside in any place or obscure corner And to shew what Members they are of the Church of England they strewed the Pavement with the torn mangled leaves of the Book of Common-Prayer which with the Book of Homilies and the 39 Articles makes up the third Book wherein the Doctrin of the Church of England is fully containad understanding that the Dean that then was was to Preach on Sunday morning Colonel Sandys and Sir John Seaton that false Traiterous Scot sent unto him